DANBURY -- In 1861, John Betts was 25 when he answered the call from President Abraham Lincoln to join the Union's effort in the Civil War.

The Bethel resident was mustered in Hartford, promoted to captain by October and the following May fought in the First Battle of Winchester in Virginia.

Betts was wounded, captured and imprisoned in the notoriously poor conditions of Libby Prison in Richmond.

Back home, Masons of the Union 40 Lodge of Danbury were keeping track of local soldiers fighting for the north.

When Betts gained his freedom after four months in prison in exchange for a Confederate soldier, he returned to Danbury to recuperate and the lodge honored him with a sword engraved with his name and the lodge's.

Fast forward 151 years.

Last winter, Betts' engraved sword turned up in, of all places, a tag sale on Long Island. From there, it was a matter of the finders locating the givers' lodge and getting the sword back to its rightful town.

The Danbury lodge learned about the sword when two members of a lodge in Smithtown, N.Y., Carl Faust and Stephan Ryan, had received it in an allotment from a tag sale. When they saw the inscription on the sword, they contacted lodge master Frank Grande in Danbury.

In 1872, Betts moved to New York, married and eventually moved out west where he died in a soldier's home called the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Los Angeles.

What happened to the sword from the time it left Betts' hands to ending up in a Long Island tag sale remains a mystery.

The returned sword will go into a new curio cabinet that was donated to the Main Street lodge to display items.

"We have a fraternal brotherhood," he said, "and we look out for our members."